“Circular Business Models for the Solar Power Industry” (CIRCUSOL) celebrated its final event at the European Parliament last 15 November 2022, hosted by the Member of the Parliament (MEP) Ms Adriana Maldonado. Among the people invited there were policy makers in European organisations, industry representatives from the photovoltaic and batteries sector and circular economy experts.

The session was opened by our host, Ms Adriana Maldonado, followed by the project representatives who presented the results of CIRCUSOL project and a set of policy recommendations. To finalise, representatives from the Directorate General for Environment (DG ENVI) and DG for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) introduced the debate based on the key takeaways of the previous statement. The session was moderated by the CIRCUSOL Policy Officer, Ms Sofia Pachini, and was held involving all the speakers and the audience present at the venue.

Policy recommendations

In this session at the European Parliament, CIRCUSOL will propose a series of policy measures extracted from the experience gathered in five demonstrator sites and a prototype of a digital asset database created to facilitate the reuse and recycling activities. The topics are the following:

WASTE AND RECYCLING

• Address premature defects & decommissioning
• Enhance design for circularity and recovery of CRM (Critical Raw Materials)
• Research agenda for a circular PV and EVB sector

CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND BUSINESS MODELS

• Support preparation for reuse
• Establish data collection and sharing procedures and the role of a digital asset database

SUSTAINABLE PRODUCT POLICY & ECODESIGN

• EU battery regulation proposal and standardization for reuse of EVB’s
• Address legal-administrative barriers for PSS
• Strengthen public perception of circular PV and EVB’s

TRADE

• Investigate feasibility of reuse in underexplored EU market segments
• Investigate feasibility of reuse non-EU countries

Final event of CIRCUSOL at EP - 15/11/2022